


Object Permanence

by cereal, gallifreyburning



Series: fic tennis [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey,” she says, and the man looks at her. “Do you want a tattoo or not?”</p><p>He stops walking and stares at her. “What?”</p><p>“I said, ‘Do you want a tattoo?’ That’s what we do here, check the sign.” </p><p>(Nine/Rose tattoo parlor AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s the third time the bloke’s been in front of the shop in as many days.

If it were later, she’d think he was a drunk, and if he were younger, she’d think he was a dealer, but it’s been the middle of the day every time, the line he paces is always straight as an arrow, and he seems to actively avoid other people, which is a terrible tactic for someone trying to sell drugs.

A couple of times he’s gotten close to the door, his hand lifting for the handle only to fall back down as he continues his circuit, wearing a groove in the pavement.

She’s seen hesitancy before, but not quite on this scale, and not on someone she can’t get a read on. She can’t even see his skin — he’s got on a thick leather jacket and trousers — so there’s no clues, no assumptions, nothing to do for it but ask.

The bell above the door tinkles when she opens it, and she squints at the sunlight that suddenly seems a lot brighter without the tinted windows of the shop in the way.

“Hey,” she says, and the man looks at her. “Do you want a tattoo or not?”

He stops walking and stares at her. “What?”

“I said, ‘Do you want a tattoo?’ That’s what we do here, check the sign,” she says, gesturing above her head. 

He doesn’t even bother looking up, instead he’s still watching her, eyes she can tell are blue even from a few feet away, and, god, he looks  _sad_. 

Miserable, even.

"Yeah," he finally says. "I want a tattoo."

She smiles at him, trying extra hard to be friendly. “Great, now we’re getting somewhere. Here, come in.”

Pushing the door open wider, she waits for him to pass her and then lets it falls shut, the little air hydraulic thing making it close in slow increments. 

He stands in the small lobby of the shop as stiffly as he’d stood on the pavement, but his eyes are active, bouncing from the flash art to the threadbare sofa pushed against the wall to the small hallway leading to the rooms. 

There’s a needle buzzing in the background, Mickey’s got a customer, and he stares at the hall a bit longer than everything else, like he’s trying to pick out which of the rooms the sound is coming from. 

"Do you, um — do you know what you want?" she asks, chewing on the edge of her thumbnail. The guy’s a little bit unnerving, like a cop or something, assessing everything. 

He shakes his head. 

"Okay, well, you can pick something out, or when Mickey’s done, you can tell him if you’ve got an idea, like a concept, and he can draw something up."

His eyes shift from the hall back to her. “Can’t you do it?”

It’s a little bit surprising, the first vaguely engaging thing he’s said, and she shrugs.

"Well, yeah, only — I’m just an apprentice," she says. "It might not be very good."

He laughs, but it sounds hollow, and not very happy at all. “It’ll be better than what I have, trust me.”

Oh,  _ohhh_ , a cover-up, of course. Probably an ex-girlfriend’s name or something, and he’s embarrassed.

"How big is it?"

For a second she thinks he’s gonna bolt, his entire frame tenses up, he looks like a jungle cat, but then he takes a deep breath and strips his jacket off. 

He’s got on a black t-shirt and her eyes immediately gravitate to his arms. They’re bare. Muscular and tan and a little bit scarred —

Is that a bullet wound? And a knife scar, maybe?  _Christ_. 

— but bare. 

Wait, except for there’s something peeking out of the sleeve on his right arm, something —

"Is that it?" she asks, pointing at the tiny bit of black she can see on his skin. 

He nods.

"Can I see it?"

The tense posture is back, but he raises his left hand and shoves his right sleeve up to his shoulder. 

It’s … Greek.

Two symbols in faded, blurred, black ink, each of them about three inches tall, maybe four:

**ΘΣ**

"What’s it mean?" she says, and she shouldn’t have, but it’s out there now.

"Does it matter?" He sounds defensive, prickly, and she was just  _asking_ , Jesus.

"Yeah, it does, because if it’s, like, gangs or drugs or some Nazi thing or something, I might not wanna get involved."

He smiles at her, actually, genuinely, smiles, like he’s entertained. “Is that shop policy?”

"Maybe." She shrugs. "Or maybe it’s my policy."

He nods. “All right, in that case — it’s military. How’s that fit with your policy?”

"Fits just fine," she says. 

"Fantastic."

“See anything you like?” Rose nods at the smorgasbord of art on the reception room wall. Fairies and butterflies, stars and faux-tribal symbols, all the standard pieces Rose is confident she can pull off with a needle. Stock work, that’s been her gig; Mickey always does the custom jobs. “Maybe something like this?” She points to a peace sign. “We could enlarge the curve of your O, encompass the E and turn it into some barbed wire inside the peace symbol or –”

“No.” The word is flat, just like his gaze. The ghost of a frown hovers around the edges of his mouth.

“Okay, no peace signs. Sorry.”

“No to all of it,” he says, waving vaguely at the wall, dismissing everything in Rose’s comfort zone. He wants a proper custom piece. She’s the one who glances down the hall now, toward the sound of Mickey’s needle buzzing away.

“You don’t have to tell me what it means but will you at least tell me how to pronounce the letters? I know they’re Greek, but feel dumb calling them O and E.”

He points to the O shape. “Theta” And next, the E. “Sigma.”

His unit name, maybe? She doesn’t ask.

“Got it. Theta Sigma.”

He winces, that haunted look flickering over his features, and she decides she’s never going to say those two words together again. The buzzing down the hall stops. Mickey’s done with his job. He’ll be out in a few minutes, not long for this bloke to wait at all, if she isn’t up for this – for him.

He still looks as lost as he did pacing outside the store, like he’s waiting for her to take his hand or something.

Rose reaches behind the reception desk for a piece of paper and pen. “C’mon then, let’s figure out something new for you.” Steps unfaltering, stomach churning at the prospect of her first proper custom job, Rose leads him down the hall to a more private space.

There’s a chair in the middle of the third room –  _studio_ , the shop owner wants the employees to call it. The chair is a fully adjustable thing that twists into more positions than a yogi. Right now it’s set up as a reclining seat, almost like a dentist’s chair. The bloke plops down without hesitation, and Rose pulls up her stool next to him.

She surveys his tattooed letters carefully, the simple serif font of a no-frills sort of man. “I’m Rose, by the way,” she says, with a quick glance at his face. He’s watching her, openly curious. “Rose Tyler.”

“I’m the Doctor,” he replies.

That’s … weird. But far from the weirdest thing she’s heard, working in a tattoo shop in one of the dodgier areas of London. There’s a homeless bloke in the alley out back, and when she brings him tea in the afternoons he only answers to the name “Black Guardian.” 

So Rose accepts “Doctor” and moves on, spreading her paper onto the counter pulling the lid off the fine-point Sharpie. With sure strokes, she creates an exact replica of the Doctor’s tattoo.  

“All right,” she says, “this is what you’ve got now.”

He looks down at the paper and his eyes seem to narrow on the image for a second, like he’s trying to burn a hole right through it, but then his expression clears, replaced — almost deliberately — by a smirk.

“Yep,” he says, “and if I wanted the same thing right over top, you’d be the one to do it. But I don’t. So show me what else you’ve got.”

She shakes her head, trying not to get mouthy with him, he  _is_  a customer after all. 

“Well, this is just the  _start_ ,” she says. “This is what we have to  _cover_. Now you have to give me, like, an idea, and I can build from it.”

He shrugs, looking completely unfazed by the whole situation. His eyes are tracking around the room, the little sterilized needle packs, the gun, the gloves, like the whole thing is just a lark, and not a huge decision. 

“Come on, you have to give me a little bit to go on, this is something you’re gonna carry around forever, you can’t scrub it off if you don’t like it, you know?”

His gaze snaps to her, irritated. “Oh, really, is that how these things work? Hadn’t noticed, what, with the one  _already on my arm_  and all.”

She sits up straighter, squaring her shoulders at him. “Yeah, exactly, and you clearly didn’t think that one through if you’re here trying to get rid of it, so maybe give this one a little bit more thought, yeah?”

He stands abruptly, making her rock back on the stool to make room. 

“This was a mistake,” he says, grabbing up his jacket, and moving toward the door. 

Oh, shit, now she’s done it, first customer to commission her — specifically  _her_  — for something custom, and she scares him off. 

“No, no, hey, look, I’m sorry,” she says. “I just — I want you to get something you’ll like.” 

He makes a noise like a grunt and then looks down at his bicep, the sleeve still pushed up to show his old tattoo. 

“I’d be happy enough just to get something I didn’t hate,” he grumbles.

“Hey, all right, there, perfect,” she says, reaching out for his hand to pull him back to the chair. 

When she touches him, his fingers close around hers, they’re warm and soft, and he yanks his hand back immediately. He stares at it, like it’s a whole separate person and he can’t believe it did that. 

Raising her hands briefly in the air, to show she won’t touch him again, she tips her head in the direction of the chair. “Something you won’t hate sounds exactly like something I can do. How do you feel about big, solid, black squares?”

He lifts one side of his mouth and sits back down. “Would you really do that? Just block it out?”

She shrugs. “If you want me to. I’d rather do something you  _like_  though, remember? And something I’m proud of.”

Kicking his boots back against the foot-flap of the chair, he meets her eye. “Let’s start there instead — something you’re proud of.”

“What? Just draw whatever I want?”

He nods and she can’t help laughing, absolutely incredulous. Who  _is_  this bloke?

“Oh, brilliant, yeah, just let some stranger draw whatever she wants and put it on your body forever,” she says, voice getting higher. “Why don’t we do a whole sleeve? Bet I could come up with something for that scar there, might get tricky around the elbow, but, hey, at least I’ll be  _proud_ , right? Total stranger tattoo artist, but I’m  _proud_ , so —”

“Okay,” he says, interrupting her. 

“What? ‘Okay’  _what_?”

He looks at his arm the same way he’d looked at his hand, almost like it’s not a part of him. “Okay, let’s do a sleeve.”

Her stomach flips, heart speeding up, the idea that there’s a customer here, talking to  _her_ , about an entire sleeve, the cost of that, and the time, and — no,  _no_. If he’s serious, she needs to turn this over to Mickey. 

Or maybe talk him out of it, because he’s obviously not thinking clearly. 

~~~~~

“Go on, tell me something you’d be proud of.”

She stares at him, mouth flapping like a fish. She’s obviously baffled by his behavior, and to be honest, so is he. Sure, he’s sick to death of seeing those letters out of the corner of his eye (but never in a mirror, he can’t remember the last time he looked in a mirror, the prospect makes him nauseous). But has he really reached the point where looking at that tattoo is more disturbing than letting a stranger have full creative license to decorate his flesh?

Apparently the answer is yes.

“Are you going to stand there with your mouth open, catching flies, or are you going to impress me?” he says.

Her teeth click closed, her lips tightening into an indignant pout. He’s not worried about getting kicked out of her studio – she’d be stupid to turn down a commission this big, and she’s already proven she’s clever.

She deliberately takes her eyes off of him, attention turning toward the paper. The pen moves, lines springing to life on the page, encircling and transforming the symbol.

“My mum leaves the tv on for noise when she’s working around the house, but she doesn’t much care what’s on. There was a documentary the other day, astronomers discovering new nebulas – they called it The Medusa Cascade or something, I don’t know. But they kept showing pictures, filters and layers of light they’d added to play up the colors and shapes, to make it more appealing to the human eye. Those dark swirls in the light, they gave the image depth, made it more dynamic.”

The words bubble out so fast she doesn’t even take a breath; her pen never stops moving.

“We’ll start by taking those letters of yours and making them into nebulas. Darkness, surrounded and changed by the surrounding light it into something different.”

She glances at him. “How do you feel about color, by the way?”

“Fantastic,” he replies automatically, mesmerized by the movement of her pen.

“Good.” She makes a few more marks, and his original tattoo has vanished from the paper. Instead, there’s a churning mass of lines that somehow give the impression of a star-field, majestic and impressive.

Rose turns from the paper and seizes his bicep, pulling his elbow out to rest on the arm of the chair. He’s so startled by the suddenness of it, his brain fails to send a signal to his mouth.

Index finger tracing the outline of his old tattoo, she replicates some of the extra lines from her design, branching off around the curve and dip of his muscle, swirling across the pale bullet scar. “Yes, that’ll do. Primarily blue, I think, with some reds and oranges to offset the black. We can start smaller than the full sleeve, maybe just cover this area” – she wraps her smaller hands around his upper arm, indicating the space from the top of his bicep muscle to his elbow – “and work out from there, design-wise.”

_Stars_.

She wants to paint him up in  _stars_.

It makes sense, in a twisted sort of way — everything he’s trying to escape from, all the horror he’s trying to forget, it happened on Earth.

What better place to go then, to hide himself, than the stars?

"All right," he says, staring at his arm in her hands, trying to imagine it finished. There’s a long, thin scar across the inside of his forearm, and he tries to picture it as a comet or something, instead of the gruesome reminder it is.

Rose lets go of his arm and grabs another piece of paper, placing it over top of her draft and tracing out line drawings.

He watches her work for a little bit, she’s so engrossed that she doesn’t see that there’s a bloke at the door, staring at her, until he speaks.

"Everything okay in here, Rose?" the bloke says, his eyes flitting briefly to the Doctor.

Rose glances up. “Oh, hey, Mickey. Yeah, it’s fine — this is the Doctor, I’m, uh — he wants a tattoo.”

Mickey nods. “Ah, cool, did you get started on the stencil for me then? Thanks, babe.”

Something in this bloke’s tone irritates the Doctor. It’s not a threat, it’s just … irritating. Like he’s making assumptions.

"She got started on the stencil for herself, actually, mate," the Doctor says, before Rose can answer.

Mickey’s brow furrows and he walks into the room, peering down at what Rose has drawn.

"But that’s — that’s custom?" Mickey says.

Rose looks up at Mickey, smiling proudly. “Yeah, it is. He’s gonna let me do a half-sleeve on him.”

"He’s going to let you do a  _full_  sleeve,” the Doctor says. “And he’s sitting right here.”

Mickey refocuses on the Doctor, eyes zeroing in on the old tattoo on his arm. 

"A full sleeve just for a cover-up?" Mickey says. 

The Doctor shrugs. “Like a bit of excess, me.”

"You know that’s at least … five sessions, right? And you’ll need to pay a deposit up front," Mickey says, still unbearably irritating. 

"That won’t be a problem," he says, eyes fixed on Mickey’s. 

"Okay!" Rose jumps in, turning around on her stool. "Mickey, come on, I have to sketch."

Reluctantly, Mickey shuffles back toward the door, turning to look at Rose before he goes. “You’re sure you can handle this?”

Something sparks in Rose’s expression. “Yeah, Mickey, I’m sure.”

With a nod, Mickey leaves, and Rose turns back to her line art without another word, but her posture is tense.

"Now, then, Rose Tyler," he says, forcing lightness into his tone. "Walk me through this process."

She takes a deep breath, composing herself, and his irritation with this Mickey bloke grows. Then she turns to face him, meeting his eye like she’s resolved.

"Well, like Mickey said, it’s gonna be a lot of sessions. You don’t have to worry about the deposit if you don’t have it — most of our customers don’t — Mickey was just being Mickey."

"It won’t be a problem," he reiterates.

"Okay, you can leave a deposit then, that’s fine. Were you set on walking out of here today with something started already? Because if I’m gonna do this, I’d rather do it right."

"So tell me what right is," he says. 

"I’d like to finish the full sketch," she says, shoving the line art tracing out of the way to look at her initial drawing.

"I’ll work on it tonight, get the whole thing plotted out, your whole arm, wrist to shoulder, so I can make sure it looks — what’s the word? — _cohesive_. If you stop by tomorrow, I can show it to you, and if you like it, I’ll work up the line art for it. That’s the lines that —”

He smiles. “Yeah, I understood.”

She nods. “All right, so once the line art’s done and you like it, I’ll make the stencil, that’ll be super quick. Then we can go from there, start tattooing. If you’re serious about a full sleeve —”

"I am."

"Okay, well, then we’ll ink all the line art first — probably a couple sessions, and then, when that’s healed a bit, we’ll start the color. I don’t … I don’t know quite how long it’ll take, or how much to charge you. Oh, god, I shouldn’t have said that."

Her earlier confidence shatters a bit and he wants to collect it all up and hand it back to her. 

"It’s fine, we’ll figure it out," he says. 

"And you’re sure about this? Because if I’m gonna spend all night drawing —"

He shakes his head. “I said I was, and I’ll pay your deposit right now if you want me to — otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After waiting a moment for any protest from her, he hops down from the chair and grabs his jacket. 

Fantastic,” he says. “Tomorrow then, Rose Tyler.”

~~~~~

“Rose? Rose! Supper’s on!”

Hunched in the middle of her bed, a dozen versions of the same drawing scattered across her pink duvet, Rose winces. “Not now, Mum! I’m in the middle of something!”

The doorknob rattles. “You don’t have that boy Mickey in there, do you? He isn’t welcome in this house anymore!”

“There’s no one in here but me!”

The door, and Rose’s mother, grow quiet.

Rose has a fist-full of colored drawing pencils and she’s practically juggling them, switching hues with the determined focus of a professional on a deadline. She’s been working, like a woman possessed, from the minute she got home. She hasn’t eaten in hours, and she’s too distracted to feel hungry.

This sense of purpose she feels is something entirely new. Her imagination is connected directly to her hands, without filtering through her usual layers of self-doubt and complacency. The design is coming together; she’s been working from her original sketch, filling in color and detail, expanding it.

She wishes she’d taken measurements of the Doctor’s arm before he stalked out of the shop. She’s been thinking about that arm a lot, about the scars and muscles and the way his skin was slightly cool to the touch. The precise, faded letters on his bicep, how they’d obviously been part of him for ages and ages.  The way the Doctor never quite brought himself to look at them, how he kept looking at her hands instead.

The doorknob judders again, then there’s a metallic  _pop,_ and it gives way. The door swings open to reveal Jackie Tyler, clad in a baby blue velour tracksuit. She’s got a face like thunder and a butterknife in her fist – she’d used it to pick the lock, and is now gripping it like she’s intent on stabbing someone with the dull blade.

“Mickey Smith, I swear if I catch you–” Jackie stops, blinks, peers around the room. Like a flash she’s inside, pulling open the closet door and pushing aside hanging clothes. “Hrmph.”

Unsatisfied, she drops to the ground and yanks up the bedskirt.

“He’s not here. I’m working,” Rose says. On all fours, still searching the shadows under the bed for any sign of Mickey, Jackie’s velour-clad bum makes its way around to the side of the bed as she crawls across the floor.

Her head finally pops up. She blows her fringe out of her eyes. “He crawled out the window, then?”

“I’ve told you a million times, me and Mickey aren’t together anymore.” Rose uses the orange pencil to finish shading in a section atop the  **Σ** symbol.

“When’s it going to get through that thick skull of yours, Rose, you’re too old to be coloring like this,” Jackie tuts, pushing to her feet. “You’re wasting your time, you can’t make a living with those crayons. You ought to take another job – there’s an opening at the corner shop two blocks away, they’re looking for a night clerk.”

“These aren’t crayons, and I’m not just  _coloring_ ,” Rose counters, shoulders hunching even more. She imagines her mother’s words are drops of rain, rolling down her back, pretending they don’t seep through her skin. “I’ve got a customer, and he wants a proper custom design, and I have to get this finished before tomorrow. Close the door on your way out.”

Jackie lingers at the foot of the bed, watching. “Hrmph.”

She doesn’t close the door when she leaves. 

Time is a blur for a while after that. 

There are things she’s been dying to try, things she’s seen in magazines or on the internet or on other people, ways of doing color, different styles, shading, ambitious things,  _amazing_ things, things she’d never had the opportunity for before.

Not that the Doctor is a lab rat or a guinea pig or anything, she’ll make sure it’s good — of course she will — but, just, she’s only ever had a blank canvas and free reign on herself, and even that’s limited. 

Her mum’s so insistent that this whole tattoo artist thing is a phase, that Rose’ll grow out of it, get a proper job, and join the real world, that she’s been staunchly against any visible tattoos on Rose herself. 

It’s … challenging. 

First, because she needs to  _practice_. 

She’s  _supposed_  to practice on  _herself_  — as far as she can tell, that’s part and parcel of an apprenticeship. 

And it makes sense, she’s got a body full of perfectly good skin, but a lot of the spots where the angle is good would be “visible.”

Second, because no one wants a tattoo from someone that doesn’t have any themselves. 

And she  _does_ , it’s just —

She’s got a star on the inside of her wrist, the tattoo that started this whole thing, and it had sent her mum absolutely  _nuclear_  when she’d come home with it. 

It was a meltdown of such huge proportions that Rose hesitates every time she moves from the shower to her room, every time a shirt has a wide neckline or a drooping shoulder; she’s stopped wearing shorts and vests. 

Because she’s got tattoos, she’s  _given_  herself several tattoos, her legs, her torso, her upper arms, finished pieces and line work, stop-starts and colors, she’s trying to get better, she’s trying to commit, do the work, build a career, build a  _life_. 

But doing it on herself, on some unseen patch of skin after-hours at the shop, that’s so much different than this opportunity she has with the Doctor. 

The Doctor, his sleeve, that’s — that’s the start of a  _portfolio_. 

And it seems … well. It seems like something he needs, too. 

That’s part of what drew her to this — the idea that she could help people. 

Tattoos can be for so many reasons, a celebration, a reminder, a declaration, an assertion, an infinite number of possibilities and she can help with them all. 

She just needs to get good enough. 

With a sigh, she turns back the sketch. 

It’s almost done. Maybe another hour.

~~~~~

It’s a weird feeling — having somewhere to be. 

Being accountable to someone. 

They hadn’t actually set a time, so there’s not quite something to be late for, but he doesn’t want Rose to think he’s a no-show. 

Somehow that’s important to him — that he doesn’t lose Rose Tyler’s faith. 

And it’s with that in mind that he shows up at the shop at the same time as yesterday, shortly after it opens, to see about what’s likely to become a very long, very expensive adventure, with a woman he’s only just met. 

He’s been bracing himself for this meeting, working up his nerve. When he walks in the front door of the shop, all that bluster leaks right out of him. Mickey’s behind the counter, Rose is nowhere to be seen.

“Hallo,” Mickey says, but as soon as he looks up from the register and finds the Doctor, his face shifts into a grimace. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me. Is that a problem?”

“Mate, you just cost me fifteen quid. I bet Rose you’d never show your face around here again.”

“I brought my arms, too,” the Doctor retorts, shifting his shoulders forward and sticking out his elbows. “When I woke up this morning it seemed a little extravagant to bring the face  _and_  the arms, but I decided today was special. Did you and Rose have any bets on the arms?”

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Rose is with someone now, she’ll be out in a mo’.” He pauses. “You brought your deposit, right? She can’t start work, if you don’t have the cash.”

“I brought it,” the Doctor replies, reaching into the breast pocket of his leather jacket to extract a fat envelope.

He’d gone by the bank on the way home from the tattoo shop the day before. The government deposited his final payout a long time ago, so long it feels like a different lifetime. He hadn’t touched the money – not once, not even for groceries – since it first hit his account. He didn’t want the money, didn’t need it, didn’t know what to do with it. Every bloody pound was like a scar on his psyche.

Now he’s going to use it to remake his physical scars, the ones voluntarily and involuntarily inflicted, into something new. He’s holding his future inside this envelope.

A grin spreads across his face. It must be an unnerving one, because Mickey backs up a pace.

“No worries, man, you should deal with Rose on that.” He glances at the envelope. “I didn’t know if you two had worked out an hourly rate or what. I’m just looking out for her, she’s my apprentice. It’s my job.”

Rose is obviously more than just Mickey’s apprentice, or had been. The Doctor doesn’t know which. He doesn’t like not knowing.

“I’ll just wait here, then.”

“Okay.” And with that Mickey flees down the hallway, to the back of the shop.

The Doctor settles into a cold metal chair. There’s a coffee table, one leg held together with duct tape, a single tabloid magazine on top. He picks it up, flips to the cover story, and settles in to read an expose on a gay talk show host.

He finishes the first article and starts a second one, about an MP who’s really an alien, before Rose emerges from the hallway.

She’s glowing. He doesn’t have any other word to describe her expression, her bright eyes, the delight and excitement he finds there.

“You came!” she says, breathless, like she’s just run all the way from the back of the shop.

“I did,” he replies. “Don’t let Mickey weasel out of paying you that fifteen quid.”

She laughs, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. “I made him give me the money already.”

Before he can respond, Rose’s other client comes out behind her, the one she’s obviously just finished working with. 

It’s a young bloke, good-looking,  _pretty,_  exactly the kind of bloke that should be getting tattoos from women like Rose, or in general, really. Embracing life — instead of trying to cover it up like the Doctor’s doing. 

He is also oozing insufferable arrogance so thick that it’s practically collected in a puddle at his feet. 

He’s got his shirt unbuttoned, and the Doctor can see a hairless, tan chest, and the sort of muscles that are meant to be looked at, not used. On his left pectoral, there’s a fresh tattoo, strong black lines of kanji surrounded by angry pink skin. 

“Thanks, Rose,” the bloke says.

“No problem, Adam. You sure you don’t want me to wrap that?”

“Nah, it’ll be all right,” and he puffs up his chest before swaggering by the Doctor and out the door. 

“Does that bloke know he’s just branded himself as a weeping penis?” the Doctor says, already moving toward the hallway and Rose’s room. 

When Rose doesn’t arrive immediately after him, he sticks his head back out into the hall to see her standing in the lobby, in the exact same position he’d left her in. “Rose?”

She turns to look at him, her face a mixture of horror and laughter. “ _Weeping penis_?”

The Doctor nods, stepping fully back into the hall with a shrug. “Well, loosely, close enough. Wait — that wasn’t your design was it? I won’t say a word.”

She shakes her head, finally moving down the hall toward her room. “No, no, he brought it, he was insistent it meant, like, ‘ _infinite knowledge’_  or something.”

“Well, it doesn’t,” he says, stepping back through the doorway to make room for Rose to do the same.

He sits down in the adjustable chair and watches Rose as she shuffles through a file folder on the table, organizing and reorganizing sketches. 

“So do you speak any other languages? Or is just those two?” Her tone is conversational, it’s the kind of stuff most people probably talk to her about, idle chit-chat while she works, but it makes him uncomfortable.

“Um. A few more,” he says, and then reaches for one of the sketches to change the subject.

“This is fantastic.” He turns the drawing back and forth, trying to tell the top from the bottom. 

She grins at him. “That’ll be your forearm, and here’s your shoulder, your bicep, and your elbow,” she says, handing him several pieces of paper. “These are close to actual size, but I’ll scale it exactly when I make the stencil, and this is so you can see how it looks all together.”

He stares at the sketches in front of him, the swirls of color, the intricacy of the design, he can tell each time she’s incorporated a scar, and he wonders at that — how had she remembered all of them?

“What do you think?” she says, biting at the edge of her thumbnail. 

“I think, Rose Tyler, that I’m getting a new tattoo.”

“Yeah?” She smiles, looking hopeful. 

“Yes, what’s next? The line art, you said, right? Should I leave or …?”

She shrugs, dropping down on to the stool next to him. “That’s up to you, I don’t have any other bookings today, so I’m gonna work on it, but you don’t have to sit there if you don’t want.”

“And if I want?”

“Then you’re welcome to,” she says. “Might send you for food though, fair warning.”

He shuffles back on the chair, making himself more comfortable. “Yeah? And what food would that be?”

She tilts her head, like she’s considering, and then she smiles.

“Chips.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What, you’re not a sushi kind of girl?” he ribs. She pulls out a fresh sheet of drawing paper. It’s translucent, and she lines it up atop the full sketch, preparing to trace an outline.

“Oh, I’ll try anything at least once,” Rose replies, sharpening her black drawing pencils with a crisp twisting motion and flicking the shavings onto the chipped linoleum floor. “I’ve just never been to a Japanese restaurant. Mum likes a curry now and then, but that’s about as exotic I ever got, growing up.”

It’s fascinating, watching her work. His previous experience getting a tattoo was much more haphazard and informal. It certainly didn’t happen in a proper place of business like this shop, one with a city license on the wall. Even if the bloke who scratched those Greek letters into the Doctor’s arm had a license of some kind to do tattoo work, it wouldn’t have been printed in English.

“Never been to Japan?”

“Never been outside of London,” she replies with a sideways glance, her cheeks turning just a tad pink.

“Nothing wrong with chips,” the Doctor says quickly. “They taste like home, don’t they? There have been times when I would’ve given anything for a nice rolled newspaper full of greasy potatoes. You know, those days when the world is ending and you just want to feel normal again?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

Rose’s hand moves quickly over the tracing paper, lines deepening and darkening. The motions are natural, she’s a natural, her movements hypnotic. It’s like seeing the map of his future, the tracing of lines and dots that govern his path.

The Doctor doesn’t realize how long the silence lasts until Rose finally stops and looks at him.

“You really – you’re sure you don’t have anywhere you need to be? Or anything else you should be doing?”

He shifts in the chair again, because his ass has gone numb. He’s been sitting for a long time.

He’s been sitting quietly,  _staring_  like a bloody creeper, for a long time.

“Chips,” he blurts out. “You still want chips?”

“You’re buying,” she says.

He reaches into his pocket, and finds only the envelope full of cash. It isn’t just for the deposit, it’s the full amount. That envelope is all he has on him. His wallet is at home, on the kitchen counter.

He pulls out the envelope and tosses it onto her little table, because he doesn’t know what else to do with it. “This is yours. For the sleeve.” He pauses. “And now I don’t have any money.”

Rose stares at the envelope, then stares at him.

“ _On me_ , I mean. I don’t have any other money  _on me_. I’m not giving you the coat off my back in exchange for this job or anything.”

“What sort of date are you?” Rose digs into her jeans pocket and pulls out fifteen pounds. “Here. Chips are on Mickey.”

~~~~~

That first afternoon, Rose begins to wonder what she’s gotten herself into, agreeing to do this job. The work itself – that’s thrilling. The prospect of spending hours and days with this strange bloke who calls himself the Doctor – that’s daunting. 

The next couple afternoons after that, it’s clear she might never understand what she’s gotten herself into, and it’s no less thrilling, but no longer daunting. 

The Doctor ends up being mostly a model customer. He’s always punctual, even if they don’t actually ever set a time, he makes small talk when she wants to, and he shuts right up when she needs to concentrate. 

He’s not a huge bleeder, and she’s not so much as seen him flinch, let alone complain about the pain. He’s good at sitting still, good at sharing his chips, and good at taking the piss out of Mickey. 

Her bank account is thicker than it’s ever been, what he’d paid her in that envelope had been higher than she’d ever dare charge him, but when she’d brought it up, he’d insisted, and she’d deposited the full amount the next morning. 

There’d been a few moments, right when they’d first started tattooing, where things had gotten … interesting. 

It was Saturday, five days after she’d seen him pacing in front of the shop for the first time, and they were finally ready to begin.

They were starting the line work on his shoulder, high enough up that he wouldn’t be able to just roll his sleeve, and so, as she’d gone to make the stencil copy, he’d removed his shirt. 

When she’d come back, to find him sitting there, bare-chested, she’d — well. 

She’d stared. A little. 

His chest was like his arms, rangy and scarred and functionally muscled, but where before she’d seen those things and only found unanswered questions, that day she’d found something else. 

She’d found a little spark of interest, a little ember of appreciation, a feeling she only normally had in pubs or in school, never at work, never with a customer. 

It was unnerving, he was older than her, had seen things she could probably never imagine; the overlap of their lives only existed inside the four walls of the shop.

So, she’d stuffed that feeling down and set to tattooing. 

It had taken three full sessions, right up until the end of today’s, but they’d finished the line work on his entire arm, and the bones of her design were now inked, in thin black lines, from his wrist to his shoulder. 

She was proud, ecstatic, overwhelmed, it was absolute madness, seeing what she’d done, what he’d allowed her —  _trusted_  her — to do. 

And now she wasn’t going to see him for  _weeks_. 

“So you’ve got your after-care instructions, same stuff you’ve been doing, no sunlight, no prolonged exposure to water, no —”

He waves a hand in the air to cut her off, his eyes flitting to the design on his forearm briefly before he speaks. “Yeah, I read the sheet, and like you said, I’ve already been doing it for the past couple days.”

She nods. “Good, good, well, that’s … it, then, I guess. We’ll start the color once you’ve healed a bit, give your skin — and you — some time to recuperate.”

He pushes up from the chair, stretching in a way she refuses to allow to be distracting, but he doesn’t move toward the door. 

Instead he shifts his weight back and forth between his feet a few times. “What if I _recuperate_  quickly? Can I — should I come back earlier?” 

He freezes for a second, almost like he’s running back over what he’s just said, analyzing it.

She shrugs. “Yeah, maybe, if you’d like. We’ll probably have to take some breaks like this between all the color, too, so this will give us an idea of how your body reacts.”

“All right,” he says, finally turning for the door, and setting her heart speeding a little with the sudden impulse to give him a hug before he goes.

Before she can, he stops again. “What if I bollocks it up or something? Should I come back then as well?”

She grins at him. “Sure, Doctor, if you think you’ve bollocksed it up, you can come back then, too.”

He nods. “Fantastic, best to call the shop to see if you’re in or …?”

Rose snags a Sharpie from the nearby table and pulls off the lid with a decisive  _snap_. “I’ll give you my mobile. For emergencies.”

“Tattoo emergences?” The Doctor lifts his eyebrows, which lifts his entire forehead into a series of dubious wrinkles, all of it elevating in a way that makes her want to laugh.

She grins, teeth pressing into her tongue. “They happen. Trust me, I’m a professional. Do you have some paper?”

The Doctor reaches into his pockets, rummages around, and shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Give me your hand, then,” she says, reaching out. He extracts it and extends it, as though he’s waiting for her to lead him somewhere.

“Just don’t forget it’s here and wash it off or anything.” She wraps her fingers around the back of his wrist and pulls him closer, so she can get his hand down onto the nearest table. It’s an awkward angle, her penmanship is messy, numbers scrawled across his surprisingly soft skin. A hard man like the Doctor, Rose had expected callouses, but there aren’t any. There’s nothing elegant about his blunt fingers and short nails, but he takes care of them.

He’s been sitting next to her for so long, it’s odd to have him looming beside her. She’d almost forgotten how big and imposing he could be. When they first met, it was intimidating; now, the way he’s angled toward her, his body leaning in so close she can smell his soap, it isn’t intimidating at all.

It’s nice. That’s exactly the word for it. Nice.

Without a thought, she traces over the numbers a few times, darkening the lines. It’s not to keep him standing there for a few more seconds before he disappears, his back kinked and body bowed to accommodate her touch, definitely not. She just needs to make sure it’s legible.

The top goes back onto the Sharpie with a  _pop_.

“That’s it, then,” he says.

“We’ll make your next appointment on the way out,” she replies. “And then yeah, that’s it.”

They appointment goes on the books for the same time he always comes in, except four weeks out instead of tomorrow. He says goodbye, and that instinct to hug him crops up again. She almost dodges around the counter to grab him before he goes. But it wouldn’t be professional, really, that sort of behavior with a client. She smothers down the urge.

He leaves, the door chime jingling on his way out, and vanishes down the street.

She stands at the register, staring after the Doctor, realizing she has no idea where he lives, or where he buys his groceries. She doesn’t know if his entire wardrobe is only full of black jeans and primary-colored jumpers. Does he ever wear a button-down? Something with stripes or polka-dots? Does his girlfriend ( _his wife?_ ) pick out his clothes?

She’s spent so much time with him over the last few weeks, she ought to know the answer to all of those questions. She’s collected plenty of trivia, chit-chat during the long hours in her studio. His favorite author (Dickens), his favorite food (potatoes of any kind), his favorite movie ( _Now, Voyager_ , but when she told him she hadn’t ever seen it, he sheepishly admitted his second favorite was  _The Princess Bride_ ). All those little crumbs of information at her fingertips, and she never asked about the most important things, the things that structure his days, that govern his life.

Her elation at finishing the sleeve wears off only seconds after the Doctor leaves, and Rose is left with a peculiar feeling of emptiness. 

~~~~~

The entire point of getting a new tattoo, or  _several_  new tattoos, was to finally get rid of the reminder he’d been carrying around for so long. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that the new ones would become a reminder of something else. 

The actual sight of the ink isn’t what does it, it’s the tight blanket of pain that covering his arm. 

It’s not a terrible pain, not intolerable, and certainly not even in the same galaxy as some of what he’s experienced, but it’s there. 

And every time something brushes his arm, every time he moves it, he feels it. Which makes sense, it’s basically a series of open wounds, but it keeps bringing on other memories. 

The way Rose’s hand had felt wrapped around his wrist to steady it, the low buzzing of the machine as she worked, the light, sweet smell of her skin, and the fruity scent of her hair. 

It’s an awful lot of sensory information to have about someone he only knows in a sort of … _professional_  capacity, and he’s fairly certain it’s not typical. 

All these people walking around with tattoos, they can’t all be thinking of the artist who did them. It doesn’t make sense, they have to mean more than that. 

But for him, there was no meaning except lack of meaning, no one to remember except people he wants to forget. 

Until Rose. 

Which brings him here, to Sunday morning. The first of a whole month of mornings where he won’t visit the shop, won’t sit in her chair, won’t talk to her. 

It’s possible, likely even, that he won’t talk to  _anyone_. It’s happened before, whole days and weeks where the most human interaction he gets is with the cashier at the grocery store.

Sometimes — most times — he thinks it’s better that way. He deserves to be on his own, _should_  be, after what he’s done, but it gets to be too much every once in a while, the loneliness leading him by the nose into a distraction, an adventure, a tattoo shop.

He’d bought a video game system months ago, and sometimes he logs on and plays with other people, just to prove he still can. Even that’s limited though, because he won’t play at war, war isn’t a game, so it leaves him with only a few options, racing games, sports games.

There’s a pair of siblings somewhere across the country — Jamie and Nancy — and he plays with them sometimes, but he has no way to contact them, and when he signs in, they’re not online.

With a sigh, he makes breakfast instead. He can see Rose’s number on his hand as he spreads the jam on his bread. He’s got it memorized already, not on purpose, but because his brain seems to latch onto things like that, he’s got a head for numbers, and apparently little else anymore.

It is also the first time, in an embarrassingly long time, that a woman has given him her number.

By mid-morning, the Doctor can’t stand the four walls of his flat anymore. He goes for a run, from what feels like one end of London to the other. There’s a freedom in running, his brain concentrating on the rhythm of his feet on pavement and nothing else. Nothing else, that is, until his stomach starts growling.

It’s well past lunch, probably closer to dinner. A few minutes to shower off and dress at home, and then he’s out again, walking to the end of the block for take-out.

The restaurant is nearly empty. The front windows are shrouded with bamboo plants, casting the room in deep shadows, even though it’s still afternoon. The Doctor makes a beeline for the bar, where he can put in his order with the proprietor, a kind Japanese man named Tanaka, and get it boxed to go.

“Doctor!” someone calls from the depths of the deserted room.

It’s Rose Tyler.

Rose Tyler at a  _sushi restaurant_.

Rose Tyler at  _his_  sushi restaurant.

“What are you doing here?” he blurts out, and suppresses a wince.

Fucking fantastic. The perfect level of gruff confrontation in his voice to put her off, exactly what he’d been aiming for. 

She arches one eyebrow, putting down her menu and crossing her arms. “Using my powers as a world-class detective, and Google, I found the sushi restaurant closest to my flat. I’m getting dinner. What are  _you_  doing here? Restaurant health code inspections?”

“You said you weren’t a sushi kind of girl.”

“I just had a big commission at work, so I thought I’d treat myself.” She tilts her head, examining him from head to toe. Suddenly he’s worried he’s left his fly unzipped, that his hair is sticking up, his jeans don’t match his boots.

“You haven’t even ordered yet.”

Her eyes dart to her lap, her arms crossing tighter against her body.

“Mr Tanaka is a nice man, but he doesn’t speak English very well. Do you need help translating the menu?”

The way she unfolds, hesitantly and with increasingly steady eye contact, makes his heart thump. “I was a little lost, yeah,” she admits.

The Doctor takes a step closer to her table. “Do you want a kiddie pool sushi experience, or did you want to dive into the deep end?”

“I’m a dive-in sort of person,” she replies. “Big fan of the deep end.”

“You should sit at the bar, then. Part of the authentic experience means eating in front of the chef.” He moves over to the bar and calls into the back, “Tanaka-san!”

Rose comes up beside him, just as the proprietor emerges from the kitchen. “What should I order?” she hisses, even as she’s smiling at Mr Tanaka.

“Tell him ‘ _omakase’_ ,” the Doctor says.

To her credit, Rose doesn’t hesitate. “Um.  _Omakase_ please?”

Mr Tanaka smiles. “Of course, no problem. Hello, Doctor.” As he speaks, he pulls out two sets of chopsticks, two plates, and two small dishes for soy sauce. “ _Omakase_  for both of you?”

The Doctor opens his mouth to protest, to say he’s just here for takeout, he’s not staying.

“Yes, for both.” Rose yanks his coat sleeve, pulling him to sit on the barstool beside her. She mutters out of the side of her mouth, “You got me into this mess, don’t you dare wander off.”

~~~~~

She tries, she really does.

Following the Doctor’s lead, she eats and eats and eats. It’s good, and some things are even great, but she can’t help feeling like she’d rather have chips, and it must show.

"Not a fan, then?" The Doctor says, when she finishes her most recent bite.

She shrugs. “It’s good, I like it.”

"You, Rose Tyler, should never play poker."

"No, I really do, I’m just … not used to it is all. Cold fish, that’s gotta be an acquired taste, right?"

He smiles. “Whatever you say.”

"Hey, come on, you can’t tell me you loved it straight off either. Go on, tell me about your first time."

His eyes widen, just slightly, and she realizes what she’s said, but there’s nothing for it now, except, maybe, to embrace it.

"Was it with someone more experienced?" she says. "Or was it two fumbling virgins, groping along, trying to find what felt right?"

The Doctor’s eyes lock on hers and she refuses to look away. He looks — interested, and it’s sending dots of heat dancing across the back of her neck. 

"Is that what I am?" he says, ignoring her questions. "Someone more  _experienced_?”

She tilts her head, making a show of slowly looking him up and down. “Well, you do know an awful lot about sushi.”

He leans toward her, and his voice, when he speaks, is low. “That’s not all I know a lot about, Rose Tyler.”

She forces herself not to back down, shifting on her chair until her body faces his before matching his tone. “Yeah? What else?”

He holds her gaze for a long moment, the restaurant was quiet to begin with, but it seems even quieter now, and warm, dark,  _intimate_. 

It’s clear a half-second before it happens that he’s going to back down, something in the way his expression snaps off, and she feels her shoulders slump as he speaks again. 

"Concrete!" he says suddenly. "I know all about concrete. The floor here, you can’t tell because of the carpeting, but it’s a polymer mixture —"

She lets his voice fade into the background, turning back to the remains of the roll on her plate. She doesn’t feel hungry anymore, she actually feels a little bit silly. 

It’s only been a few months since things ended with Mickey, and she’s been so focused on work that she hasn’t had time for a personal life.

It’s clear now — again — that work isn’t the place to find that personal life. 

When the bill comes, she insists on paying her half and the Doctor almost looks like he wants to protest, but he takes her money and tucks it into the little folder just the same. 

They walk out of the restaurant to find that the sun has begun setting, casting everything in a fading golden light. It’s a beautiful evening, clear and crisp and quiet, everybody inside with their families, dreading the start of the work week tomorrow.

She used to be like that, used to hate waking up for dead end jobs and the monotony of a life she wasn’t excited about, but tattooing is her escape from all that. Even if the Doctor won’t be in tomorrow, even if she tattoos a hundred butterflies, it’s still something she’s proud of.

At her side, the Doctor shifts his weight, and she glances at him. 

“Time to go home, Rose? Done with sushi, back to beans on toast?”

She shrugs. “Nah, the evening’s young. I’m meeting a mate at a pub.” It’s mostly true. Even if they didn’t make specific plans, Jack will be at the pub tonight, he  _is_  the bartender after all. She feels the next words in the back of her throat, nervous and tickling and urgent. “You could come along. If you want.”

The way he hesitates, worried wrinkles forming on his forehead, it’s immediately clear that the question was a mistake. “Nevermind, it’s probably not –”

“Yeah, alright,” he says. He still sounds dubious, like he’s agreeing to something he shouldn’t.

“Are you sure?”

“Not at all. Where’s this pub, then?”

It’s far enough away that Rose would usually catch a bus. Instead, she starts walking and the Doctor falls in beside her.  “How do you know so much about concrete?”

“I’ve done a bit of construction in my day,” he replies.

A jolt of excitement runs through her, the thrill of discovery. She hasn’t ever brought up his career, it’s a topic that always seemed implicitly off-limits. “Is that what you do now? Construction”

“Nope, that was a while ago. I’ve done a bit of this and that my whole life. I’m a dab hand at everything, me.”

“And that’s not conceited at all,” Rose laughs. It’s more of a cackle, really, completely unbecoming and uncontrollable. “Like you’re so impressive.”

“I am impressive,” he retorts instantly, putting his hand over his heart in mock injury. “I sat still for days while you poked me over and over again with a needle. That’s got to mean something.”

“Very manly,” she says with another snort of laughter.

“And how many times have you been on the receiving end of the tattoo gun, Miss Rose Tyler?” There’s an aggressively playful intensity to the conversation, the way he’s pretending his pride isn’t involved at all, when it so obviously is. He reaches out to pluck her hand where it’s swinging at her side, lifting her arm and turning it over. His fingers circle around her wrist completely, and he examines the little star tattooed on the inside. “Is this it? Is this all you could sit still for?”

“Oi, there’s more,” Rose says. She doesn’t pull her hand away from his grip. “But don’t ask me to prove it, I’d get arrested for indecent exposure.”

That shuts him up for a second – shuts him down, actually, his eyes go blank and he stares through her, like his brain has left this dimension and gone somewhere else entirely.

“Lots more?” he says, and his throat sounds so dry.

“You look like you need a pint, Doctor,” Rose says. He’s still got hold of her hand, and she pulls him inside the next door down the street. Over the entrance is a green sign with gold lettering, “The Wicked Wolf”. On a smaller sign beneath, in changeable bold-block type, “Drink Special - Chula Lager - 3 pints £6”.

~~~~~

He didn’t like the movie ‘Cocktail’ 20 years ago, and he doesn’t like the grungy reboot version he’s living right now. 

There’s an offensively handsome Tom Cruise-looking bloke behind the dingy bar, his smile the only thing that sparkles in the entire place, and he’s flipping bottles in time to the anachronistic Glen Miller song pouring out of the jukebox. 

"Jack!" Rose shouts at the Doctor’s side, waving her free hand in the air. 

Of course this bloke is Jack. Of-fucking-course he is. 

"Rose Tyler," Jack says, raising his voice, and executing a little double spin move that ends with two shots of vodka being poured into twin glasses. "I’ll be right with you!" And then he winks. 

"Come on, let’s get a seat," Rose says, tugging the Doctor to the far end of the bar and two empty stools. 

He tugs her the other way instead, spotting a small table whose chief selling point is that’s farther from Jack. 

"Table’s got more room," he says. 

Rose shrugs, but follows him anyway, taking the chair next to him when they reach the table. 

There’s a game show muted on an old tube telly sitting precariously on a shelf opposite them, the closed captioning scrolling by in big black and white blocks. 

"The Second World War," the Doctor answers automatically in response to the question, and Rose’s eyes flit to the screen. 

"Oh, that lady scares me," Rose says, pointing at Anne Robinson. "Always makes people feel so bad for getting questions wrong."

He shrugs. “So don’t get a question wrong.”

"Easy for you to say, Mr. Impressive. The rest of aren’t — what was it? —-  _dab hands_  at everything.”

"I’ll be your Phone-a-Friend, Rose Tyler," he says, leaning forward with a saucy grin. 

She laughs and taps him right on the tip of his nose. “Wrong program.”

Before he can respond to her — not so much her words, as the fact that she  _tapped his nose_ — Jack is standing in front of them.

Rose Tyler on a Sunday night,” Jack says. “Just like the old days, only … you don’t look like Mickey.”

Rose laughs and he wants to go back to twenty seconds ago when  _he_  was the one making her laugh. “No,” Rose says. “This is the Doctor.”

"The  _Doctor_?” Jack says, with an inscrutable look. “Doctor  _what_?”

"Just the Doctor."

Jack’s still staring at him, squinting almost, like he’s making an assessment or something, and it’s just as irritating as all the flashy bar moves from earlier. “Huh,  _the Doctor_. Don’t hear that name much.”

The Doctor sniffs. “Don’t hear it  _ever_ , I’ve never met another one.”

Jack shrugs. “Used to do some work for the government — very top secret, you understand — they’d talk about a bloke called the Doctor.  _Just_  the Doctor, so it seems you’re not the only one.”

Heat spreads across the back of the Doctor’s neck as every inch of him kicks into hyper awareness. 

“I’ve never met another one, but then again I’ve never been to America,” the Doctor lies, deadpan. He leans back with the casual grace of a leopard, grins broadly, gives Jack his most intimidating stare-down. “Maybe every other bloke is named Doctor over there, I dunno.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Jack replies, not flinching. Jack grins back at him, wild creatures baring teeth at each other.

“That government work you used to do, did it involve bartending at the local police station? Is that where you learned those flashy moves you were sporting behind the bar? You seem the sort who’s spent a career slinging martinis instead of guns?”

“Those moves are to thrill the patrons, so I earn more tips. My moves with a gun – those are even more exciting.”

“Oh my god, the testosterone at this table is strong enough to power a jet plane. I need a drink,” Rose says. Her chair scrapes loudly across the wood floor. “You two finish measuring – whatever it is you’re measuring – before I get back, okay?”

Jack waits until she’s at the bar before he sits down opposite the Doctor, arms resting on the table. “So how do you know Rose?”

“Is this a job interview?” the Doctor retorts. “Rose and I are friends.”

“The legends of the Doctor that circulated around those military circles, deep cover black ops stuff. Bad, bad things. I know about those bad things because I’ve seen them firsthand. I’ve also known Rose a long time. She’s a wonderful girl, and she deserves good things. I wouldn’t want her getting tied up with someone who might bring bad things into her life.”

“Rest easy there, Captain ,” the Doctor says. God, he needs a drink. He needs to get out of this pub. Where is Rose? “Because that legendary Doctor, he isn’t me. And no one’s tied up at the moment, nor are they likely to be. I’m terrible with knots, anyway.”

“Three pints of Chula Lager!” Rose says too loudly, too brightly, as she glides back to the table. She deposits one in front of the Doctor, another in front of Jack, and settles in with the last one for herself. “Have you boys put your measuring sticks away? Can we have a normal conversation now?”

The Doctor lifts his glass and drains it in a series of long steady gulps. When he plonks the empty glass onto the table, Rose and Jack are staring at him like he just grew a second head.

“Hold on a mo’, let me catch up,” Rose says, elbowing him in the arm.

“Ouch!”

“Oh god, oh sorry, I can’t believe I just did that. Are you okay?” Rose’s entire body pivots toward the Doctor, her hands fluttering around his leather sleeve like she’s got an invisible x-ray machine to see the damage underneath.

“I didn’t realize your new friend was such a delicate flower, Rose,” Jack says before the Doctor can answer. With a smug look, he takes a long pull from his pint; it’s half gone before he stops.

The Doctor looks smugly at his own glass where it sits empty, and then shrugs.

"Nothing wrong with flowers, right,  _Rose_?” he says, drawing out her name.

She looks down at her lap and her shoulders shake, like she’s smothering a laugh, like she can’t believe this is happening.

Truth be told, he can’t either, pissing contests are hardly his style, but they’re here now, and winning —  _winning_  is his style.

He pushes back from the table and stands. “I’ll get the next round.”

Before he goes, he peels off his jacket and pushes the sleeves of his jumper up, mindful of his arm as he moves the fabric past his new tattoo.

He settles the jacket around the back of the chair, making large movements that bring his forearm — and the ink adorning it — right under Jack’s nose.

Then he walks off to the bar. There are eyes on his back for sure, but whether they’re Jack’s or Rose’s or both, it’s hard to say.

~~~~~

Jack tips his head toward the Doctor as he makes his way to the bar.

"That your work?" Jack says.

She grins. “Yeah, a whole sleeve, can you believe it? Gonna look  _amazing_ , you should see the colors we picked out.”

Jack nods knowingly. “Ohh, so that’s what this is — a business relationship.”

Rose feels something prickle in her at Jack’s tone — defense of the Doctor, defense of herself, she can’t tell, but she doesn’t like it.

"No, we’re … friends, I think," she says.

"You don’t sound sure," Jack says, and drains the rest of his beer.

"I’ve only just met him. But it’s good, we get along, we had some sushi before this, he’s really smart, knew all about it — he even ordered in Japanese, he lived there for a while or something."

Jack sits up straighter as she takes a few long sips of lager, trying to catch up.

"Oh, I’m hurt, I wanted to be your first," he says. "You know I spent time in Kyoto, right? Did the Doctor say where he was stationed?"

Jack’s tone is probing, slightly urgent, and it’s making Rose feel uneasy.

"No."

"Did he say what he was doing over there?"

"No."

"Do you know what he does  _anywhere_?”

Rose feels herself growing agitated, Jack’s got an angle, but she can’t figure out what it is.

"He said he did some construction," she says.

“ _Right_ ,” Jack says. “Sure you heard him right? Wasn’t  ** _de_** struction?”

Rose’s eyes flit to the bar, she can see the Doctor’s back as Ianto stands in front of him, pouring something.

"Whatever you’re trying to say, you better just say it," she snaps.

Jack raises both hands in the air in surrender. “Nothing, I’m not trying to say anything. I just don’t think your new friend is the nice guy you want him to be. You don’t need another Jimmy.”

She slams her glass on the table. “He’s not  _Jimmy_ , Jack. And if you can’t play nice with someone who paid me  _a lot_  of money, we’re gonna have to get our next round somewhere else.”

She’s not entirely sure why she’s defending the Doctor so fervently, she’s not even known him a week. It’s just … he’s got an air about him. Something sad, or something lonely, and he hides it behind wide, manic grins, and words that don’t mean anything.

“I don’t care if you buy my beer,” Jack replies, lowering his voice as the Doctor heads back to their table. “I just want you to be safe, Rose. Be careful.”

“Went for the Blon Fel-Fetch this time around,” the Doctor says, depositing beers in front of everyone. “Welsh brew, or something. Thought we’d give it a try.”

“It’s a good day for trying new things,” Rose says, kicking Jack’s foot under the table. She seizes her pint at the same time. It’s a lighter brew, fizzy and smooth on her tongue. Ignoring Jack’s stare, she grins at the Doctor.

“You’ve got a –” He reaches out, as though he’s about to touch her lips, stops mid-way, and pulls his hand back to gesture vaguely at his own mouth. “Some foam.”

Rose runs her tongue over her top lip, licking off the foam. “Better?”

The Doctor sits down. “No, wait.” He takes a napkin, shakes it out, and dabs it over her mouth.

Jack makes a soft  _harrumph_ and stands up, leaving his beer untouched. “I should get back over there, before Ianto stages a mutiny. Got to prep for karaoke hour, too. Nice to meet you, Doctor.” He sticks out his hand.

The Doctor grips it, flashing his teeth in a smile. “Any friend of Rose’s,” he says, letting the rest of the statement hang in the air, unsaid.

“Right,” Jack replies. He gives Rose one last hard look, and Rose frowns back at him.

“I don’t know what was into Jack tonight, I’m sorry. He’s usually not like that. He’s usually the life of the party,” Rose says, when he’s gone.

The Doctor shrugs, sliding the spare pint back over to sit in between them. “I’m feeling a bit out of sorts, myself. Maybe it something in the air today.”

“Good out-of-sorts, or bad out-of-sorts?” Rose asks.

The Doctor stares at his beer, forehead wrinkled in thought, as though he’s doing some sort of mental inventory in order to answer her question.

“Good,” he finally says, and it’s decisive. His eyes are bright, his grin wide. “Definitely good.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Rose takes a long gulp from her glass. The tips of her fingers are just starting to feel a bit tingly.

“Oh.” The Doctor sits bolt upright, beer sloshing over the rim of his pint, surprise registering on his face. “Oh!”

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Rose glances around the pub (over half full of patrons, none of whom look suspicious), at Jack and Ianto (minding the bar and not paying the Doctor any attention, although judging by the look on Ianto’s face, Jack just pinched his arse), at the telly (still the quiz show).

“Did Jack say ‘karaoke’?”

“Yeah, Tuesday nights are amateur stand-up, Friday is pub quiz, Sundays are karaoke.”

“I’m not a fan of Sundays,” the Doctor says, mild panic in his eyes.

He doesn’t leave. He and Rose stay at that table, chairs gradually moving closer together as they watch the quiz show together and talk through the rest of the evening. The pub fills up nearly to bursting, and karaoke starts at 9:30 p.m. It’s so loud, they have to lean in to hear each other talk, mouths close to ears, breath on skin, shouting clever remarks about each performance over the din. Eventually Rose swivels in her chair, tucking one leg under the other. Her knee is resting on his thigh, her arm folded over the back of his seat and her hand resting atop his shoulder, so she doesn’t have to twist to talk to him. He keeps his hands on the table, though, fitfully picking at bits of flaking shellac, downing lagers one after the other. 


	3. Chapter 3

There’s a woman with a smoky, timeless voice crooning out a smoldering rendition of ‘It Had to Be You’ when he finally deigns to acknowledge the fact that there’s karaoke going on at all. 

He’d been completely avoiding it up until that point, talking about everything  _but_  the people standing only a few yards away, singing their little hearts out. 

She thought she’d had him a little earlier, when she’d sung along with the bloke doing ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,’ but he’d only grinned for a second, and then changed the subject to the weather. 

Now though, he’s watching the woman with rapt attention, slowly swaying his head along to the music with a dorky (endearing) little smile on his face.

“Dare you to sing,” she says, pitching her voice low and slow to match the song.

He glances at her, head only shifting the slightest bit because any farther would cause a collision of their faces — and not in the way the lager has her considering with increasing frequency. 

“Now what’s in that proposition for me?” he says, matching her tone, and looking — not very subtly — at her mouth.

She bites her lip, pretending to consider it. “The glory of not backing down from a dare.”

His eyes stay fixed on her mouth. “Ah, glory’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

She shifts in her chair, under the guise of squaring herself up for a negotiation, but really it’s just turning further into him, until her front’s completely angled away from the stage and toward him, her arm still stretched out along the back of his chair. 

“You could give me a dare, then,” she says. “I’ll even go first.”

He drums his fingertips on the table top before lightly slapping his palm down. “What about a truth instead?”

She nods. “Deal.”

His hands finally leave the table top, falling to his lap as he turns to mirror her position, the two of them facing each other with only a handful of inches between them.

“I think you said something about other tattoos,” he says, tapping his finger on her wrist, over the star there. “Let’s see one.”

This time his gaze doesn’t linger on her mouth, it tracks slowly down her body, like he’s trying to see straight through her clothes. She fights the urge to shudder under the weight of it all, the slow, sexy music, sitting so close to him, and she forces herself to rally. 

“That’s not a truth,” she says. “A truth is a question. I’ll  _tell_  you about one —”

Before she can, he grips her wrist, thumb swiping slowly over her star once more. 

“Wait, no, go back to the dare, I  _dare_  you to show me one.”

He locks eyes with her, expression challenging and smug, and she wants to wipe that look right off his face. Maybe by pressing it against some part of her body; she’s got plenty of suggestions. 

Some of them are even places covered in tattoos, places she could probably get away with showing in here, Jack wouldn’t mind, and she considers all of them. 

The wolf, the gas mask, the little Peter Pan she’d gotten in memory of her dad — all of them would require explanation, some more than others (“My dead dad’s name is Peter.”), and she doesn’t want to break whatever mood is building here with a lot of exposition or sad stories.

It really just leaves one — easily accessible and easily explained. 

With a slow smile, she leans back, gently prying her wrist from his grip to pull at the collar of her shirt. It’s a t-shirt, just a plain cotton thing, and the neck gives easily enough as she tugs it down and to the left. 

The Doctor follows her movement, seems to chart every inch of skin revealed until she’s bared the skin above her left breast and the patterned heart tattooed there, right over her real one. 

“A Union Jack?” 

She glances down at the tattoo, the heart filled in with blue, red, and white. “Yeah.”

He lifts his hand, fingertips hovering in the air over her skin in a moment that seems to go on forever before he drops it back down without actually connecting. She can’t tell if she’s relieved or disappointed. 

“Did you do that one?”

She nods, letting go of her collar and smoothing it down. “Yeah, had to do it upside down, a little in the mirror.”

He swallows, still staring at her chest even though her shirt’s back in place. “Right, right, bet that was a little … precarious. Looks nice, though. You did a good job.”

She laughs. “Oh no, flattery’s not gonna get you out of this. Your dare now, buddy. Pick a song.”

~~~~~

This is traditionally the moment when the Doctor would bolt. A clever and gorgeous woman practically sitting on his lap and flashing her skin at him, the prospect of a public performance looming. The idea that said clever and gorgeous woman would hear the duck-strangling sound of his singing, that’s enough to send him right into the hills.

Except he’s quite a few pints into this accidental date with Rose Tyler, the steady sting of his freshly-tattooed arm has been keeping his adrenaline at a slow trickle, and he’s giddier than he has been in ages.

He feels human again, instead of like some sort of alien inhabiting human skin.

The air is thick when he sucks it in, full of sounds and smells and so many other people so close to their table. Leaning forward, ostensibly so she can hear him, he rumbles into her ear, “I don’t perform in public.”

She doesn’t pull away, her cheek alongside his, soft and warm. She’s flushed, beer and the tight press of the crowd and nerves – at least he hopes so, hopes he’s not misreading these signs, he feels so out of practice it’s laughable, like he’s been living on a different planet.

He closes his eyes, resists the urge to nuzzle into the hollow beneath Rose’s ear.

“It’ll have to be in private, then,” she replies, every word tickling his skin. He has goosebumps, even in this heat. His arm throbs. “I’ll never let you live it down if you try to get out of this.” She pulls away, grinning, her tongue doing that thing again. He almost seizes her shoulders and pulls her back. The need to see his fingers on her neck, tracing her collarbone, outlining that little Union Jack heart, it’s more important than anything else in the universe.

He lifts an eyebrow at her.

She drains the last of her pint and bounces out of her chair. “C’mon,” she mouths.

He follows her example, draining his glass, collecting his leather coat, and getting to his feet. He reaches out and she takes his hand, leading as they thread their way through the crowd and to the door.

From behind the bar, standing next to Ianto, Jack watches them the whole way out.

It’s warm outside, too, but the street is empty and the stars are bright.

“All right, then,” Rose says, dropping his hand and crossing her arms. “Audience of one. Let’s hear it.”

“What, right here?” It comes out as more of a squeak than a question. He clears his throat, tries again. “In the middle of the street?”

“Between you, me, and our friend the postbox,” Rose replies, strutting over to put her arm around the tall red receptacle. She leans in and whispers to it, “This is going to be good. Pay attention.”

In a beer-hazed panic, the only song the Doctor can remember is Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”

If he sings, though, there’s a slim chance Rose might show him more of her tattoos.

He opens his mouth. “There’s a starmaaaaan waiting in the sky, He’d like to come and meet us, But he thinks he’d blow our minds,” he croaks. He has no idea where the words came from, but he silently thanks his lord and savior David Bowie. His voice gets steadier, evening out as he continues, “There’s a starmaaaaan waiting in the sky, He’s told us not to blow it, Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.” 

Rose is holding back her laughter, but a giggle finally bubbles out, popping light and happy in the space between them, and bringing an abrupt end to his singing.

"Catch me doing that again," he says. "Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to laugh at people?"

Rose shakes her solemnly. “Oh, no, no, you misunderstand. We weren’t laughing  _at_  you, we were laughing  _with_  you, weren’t we, Mr. Post?”  She nudges the post box conspiratorially, but then pulls her arm back, rubbing at her elbow. 

"Serves you right," he says, but he knows there’s a fond little smile lifting the corner of his mouth. 

"You’re getting awfully cheeky with someone set to take a needle to your skin again in a few weeks."

He grins. “That’s a  _month_ , Rose Tyler, and I’m confident I’ll have charmed my way back into your good graces by then.”

In truth, he’s not confident of that at all, he feels like sneaking around on borrowed time, that the universe couldn’t possibly allow him much longer in the presence of such a sparkling, charming woman, couldn’t possibly allow him much longer to be  _happy_. 

Because he is, standing on this street corner, with Rose, at 11 at night, he’s  _happy_. 

She scoffs, but can’t help from grinning either. “Oh, you gonna feed me more uncooked fish? Master of seduction, you are. What’s next — a tour of London’s most elegant toilets?”

He takes mock offense. “I believe you Googled yourself right into the fish, I just walked in and gave you some pointers out of the goodness of my heart.”

They’ve fallen into a walk without him realizing, working their way, slow and aimless, down the street as Rose bumps his shoulder. 

"Oh, yeah, so much  _goodness_  in your heart, sure just the one can contain it all? Might want to look into a spare.”

He grabs her hand on impulse, knitting their fingers together. “My one heart works just fine, thanks, and if I were seducing you, you’d know it.” 

Rose smirks at that, casting him a look in the glow of a street lamp. “Is that so? You’ve got moves then, Doctor?”

He glance down at her, trying to remember how to work his face, how to make himself smolder or gaze or anything that makes him more than just a funny-looking bloke with funny-looking ears. 

“Oh, Rose Tyler, I’ve got the moves.”

Rose darts ahead a couple steps quicker than him and turns around, extending their arms with their hands still joined, until she can reel him into her in a sort of dance.

“All right,” she says with a tug, “let’s see them.”

His free hand had landed on her waist reflexively when she pulled him into her, but now he’s stuck, unmoving, unable to see anything together, and instead parsing it all in bits of information. 

There’s the softness of her t-shirt under the jacket he didn’t even notice she’d put on. 

There’s the sweet, warm smell of her. 

There’s the cold bite on the tip of his nose and the ends of her hair ruffling in the wind. 

“I wouldn’t want to boast,” he says, still locked in place.

“I think you should,” she returns, and tips her head up until he’s staring down right at her face. 

The air is abuzz in the Doctor’s ears, the edges his vision pinpointed with light. His body moves, hand pressing into Rose’s waist, guiding her along with him. It’s a slow movement – not elegant but graceful nonetheless, feet shuffling and hips pressed together. His thigh is positioned between hers, nudging left and right as they waltz on the sidewalk, slowly twirling in the quiet dark night.

The Doctor spent his childhood in public boarding schools where proper etiquette was compulsory, and social niceties like impractical formalwear and outmoded dance steps were part of the required curriculum. He’d spent hours in a gothic gymnasium as a sweaty-palmed teen, dancing the waltz and foxtrot with others from his well-to-do set of peers. There were white gloves and cotillions, all for the benefit of parents who were paying a king’s ransom to see their children educated to the gold-plated standard of the aristocracy.

He’d left that life behind – run away from it, as fast and hard as he could – years ago. He’d hardly ever looked back, certainly never with nostalgia. But finally, at last, he’s found meaning in all those adolescent hours of agony, because he’s dancing on a streetcorner with his tattoo artist.

~~~~~

Rose can’t take her eyes off the Doctor’s face. Her feet bump into his as she learns the rhythm of the dance he’s leading her through,  _one_ -two-three, _one_ -two-three,  _one_ -two-three. She’d been teasing, of course, when she goaded him about his moves. Frankly, she was hoping he’d pin her up against the wall and snog her senseless just to shut her up.

Instead, he’s got one elbow stuck out like he’s on Strictly Come Dancing, and he’s guiding her through the steps as proper as you like. She’s Cinderella, and he’s Prince Charming, and the ball is happening on a streetcorner outside a closed chemist’s shop. The way this evening has been going, Rose wouldn’t be shocked if the Jaguar parked beside them went _poof!_  and turned into a pumpkin.

His hands are so warm, one palm cupped over her hipbone, the other extended in their formal dancing pose. His thigh is between hers, nudging her along in the dance. He keeps pulling her in tighter, closer, until their hips are touching and she’s completely wrapped up in the scent of leather and beer and aftershave, she’s lost, in a trance that begins and ends in the vivid blue depths of his eyes.

In a smooth motion, the Doctor spins her. Rose doesn’t have to think, her body simply responding to his cues, they twirl and then she’s tipped backward. He leans down with her, the hand on her hip gliding up under her jacket and pressing flat between her shoulder blades, supporting her weight completely. God, he’s strong. Strong and self-satisfied, if that grin on his face is anything to go by.

He pulls her upright, spins her around once more, and her back meets brickwork. Not hard, but not exactly gentle either. Their joined hands, which had been out in a formal dance pose, bump up against the wall as well. He’s pinned her arm over her head, his other hand back to her waist, thumb slipping under the hem of her t-shirt. There’s no space in between them at all, his thigh still between her legs. She makes a stuttering sound of surprise, reflexively squeezing, angling her pelvis upward as she seeks friction.

His lips are open, his eyes wide as he watches her. She tips her chin toward him, chest arching away from the wall, tongue running over her teeth.

“Rose,” he says, a hoarse growl.

“Yes, Doctor?”

He brushes his nose against hers, his eyes falling shut briefly as he draws a deep breath. 

"Is this a good idea?" He breathes the words out, the warmth of them mixing with the chill in the air. 

She wants to shout  ** _yes_** , wants to pull him down the last few centimeters, wants to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, but she doesn’t know if it  _is_  a good idea, Jack’s warning and vague notions of workplace propriety and professionalism and, oh, fuck it —

"Yeah," she says. 

He nods his head, a tiny movement that’s more of an advance forward than anything. 

"Okay," he says, something simple in his acceptance, and then he touches his lips to hers. 

There’s a brief moment where she’s not feeling anything on an emotional level, only a physical one, the soft press of his mouth, the cold tip of his nose on her cheek, her hand pinned above her head, and her leg straddling his own. 

Then he moves, just the slightest bit, not pulling back, not moving away, just the adjusting movement of a kiss, and suddenly the telly screen she’s watching all this on shatters, and she’s actually  _in_  it. 

She returns the pressure against his mouth as much as she can, her whole body feels weighted to the wall behind her, pinned like one of those carnival rides that goes round and round, faster and faster, until you feel gravity like a heavy blanket all over your body.

It puts him in total control, allows him to make small, sipping kisses against her lips, where she would’ve parted them already, it allows him to still hold her hand, where she would have it curled in his hair. 

Is it long enough to  _really_  grab, would she be able to get a grip? 

She wants to find out. 

With a small, frustrated sound in the back of her mouth, she finally parts her lips, quickly enveloping his bottom one between the two of hers. She feels him shudder, lightly, his frame shaking just the slightest bit as he presses against her, and this time when he kisses her, neither of them are in control.

Suddenly his mouth is open and hers is, too, his tongue stroking against her own as he’s moving closer, closer, closer, all these hard planes and bulky fabrics, and the wet heat and wet friction and wet ohgodfuck. 

This isn’t the snogging she does on the street, this is the snogging she does steps from a bed, from a couch, from a kitchen table, this is snogging with so much purpose, and his hand slips entirely under her t-shirt, lifting the weight of her short jacket, too, until his hand spans the skin of her lower back. 

She arches a little at the cool feel of his palm, but it’s a pleasant coolness, an  _arousing_ coolness, and her hips are seeking out proof that he feels the same way. 

There’s too much between them though, too many layers, and instead she slips her tongue past his, until they’re tangling in  _his_  mouth, and she tightens her hand around the one he’s using to pin her. 

Her hips keep arching, and there’s a tingling heat low in her stomach and at the tips of her breasts and she’s doing everything —  _everything_  — she can to be encouraging, which is why, when he pulls away, it takes her a few seconds to catch up. 

“What?” she says, to see that the Doctor has staggered backward a couple steps, his torso rising and falling with the force of his breathing.

“No. No. You were wrong. This is a bad idea,” he says, still shuffling back. He won’t look Rose in the eye. “Unprofessional.”

Cold, indignant panic douses her. Everything suddenly sharp, crisp, she pushes away from the wall and puts her hands on her hips, staring him down.  _He’s_  calling  _her_  unprofessional? What the hell does he think he’s been doing today, then? Following her like a puppy from the restaurant to the bar, being so stupidly charming, serenading her with David Bowie.

“Excuse me?”

The Doctor squirms, fidgeting with his jacket, shoulders rounded in. “It’s just – Rose, you’re really clever and beautiful for a …” He waves a hand, as though he’s trying to pluck a word from the air. “…for a tattoo artist. But that’s what you are. This is a bad idea, mixing business with other things.”

With every word he stutters, Rose’s fury swells, marinating in her humiliation. The Doctor thinks she’s below him, that’s it. Like he’s some sort of superior being, and she’s just a chav from an estate.

Unprofessional?  _Unprofessional?_

Fine. She can do that.

“You can fuck right off,” she says.

~~~~~

The Doctor lifts his gaze at the sound of her heels clicking on the pavement. Rose is walking away – angrily strutting, actually, hips swaying and hair bouncing as she leaves him behind.

He wants to sink into the center of the earth. He wants to throw himself into a pit of molten lava. He wants to rewind time and shag her right here on the street. He wants to fling himself after her, apologize on his knees, confess to the horrible things he’s done and how he doesn’t deserve happiness, not when he was responsible for the suffering of so many.

If he let himself go down this road, he could never keep it casual. For him, there wouldn’t just be strings attached, there would be bloody iron bars riveting him to her. He’s already so besotted he sets his clock by the hours he spends sitting in her tattoo studio.

The idea that she might reciprocate those feelings, to even the smallest degree, it’s the most terrifying thing he’s faced since his last day in combat. It was hard enough, re-entering civilian life the last few months. Finding a flat, going to the launderette, shopping for his own food, those simple tasks were like coming home to a foreign land, the topography changed, the smallest hill now a mountain.  

Rose’s friend Jack was right, the Doctor would bring bad things into her life. She’s young, with a life full of promise ahead. It wouldn’t be fair to her, the baggage he’s carrying. Not even for a one-night stand, if that’s the only thing she wants.

She turns a corner at the end of the next block, and she’s gone.

Walking home, alone, through the dark streets in the middle of the night. No buses this late, and the tube stop’s closed.

The Doctor’s running, after her like a shot. He’s good at running, it’s so natural to him, like breathing or blinking. It always clears his mind.

He rounds the same corner. She turns her head, sees him, hunches her shoulders and starts walking faster.

“I’ll walk you home,” he pants, coming alongside her.

She rolls her eyes. “I said fuck off.”

He’s torn between wanting to protect her, and the knowledge that he, himself, is probably the thing she needs protecting from the most. 

There’s something in her expression, a hard, indignant fury, but it’s sliced through by paper-thin cracks of something else — vulnerability, embarrassment, wounded pride, he can’t tell, but it’s those cracks that make him think if he pressed it, she’d let him walk her home. 

Instead, with a sigh, he slows his pace, dropping a few steps behind her. 

“All right,” he says, resigned. “I’ll fuck off, and walk myself home, it’s in this direction though, nothing to be done about that.”

Rose glances back at him. “Whatever.”

He follows her in relative silence, he could be completely silent if he needed to, could blend right into the night so much that she wouldn’t even know he was there, but he has a feeling that would freak her out more than the sound of his footsteps trailing hers. 

Would she turn to look for him? Or would she just keep going? 

It’s a question he doesn’t want to know the answer to, so he keeps his boots thudding on the pavement, shifts his torso, his arms, making his jacket rustle, tiny reminder after tiny reminder that he’s there. 

He also keeps himself alert, scanning the alleys, the doorways, every nook and cranny of the night that could hide a hide threat to Rose Tyler. 

They reach a point where he should make a turn for his own flat, and he slows his steps, debating whether to make it, and causing Rose to turn and look back in a way he knows he wasn’t supposed to notice. 

It’s enough to decide for him, and he picks up his pace again, trailing after her. 

When they finally reach what’s apparently her flat, they’ve emerged into an Estate area, big buildings rising on either side of the concrete courtyard they’re standing in. 

Rose pivots on her heel and pins him with a look. “So you live around here, too, then?” It’s clear she knows he doesn’t, her tone laced with a bite. 

“Not  _quite_  here,” he answers carefully.

She scoffs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well, I’m home now. You can go.” And then she walks, without a glance back, into a stairwell, the door banging shut behind her. 

He watches her progression up the stairwell as long as he can, before turning to make the walk back to his flat. 

It takes longer than it should, he’s not in a hurry, and the cold, dark night is a perfect place to indulge in the sort of self-castigation he’s so fantastic at, so he allows it, poking at the memory of Rose’s hurt expression after the kiss like he’d poke at a bruise. 

Or a bullet wound. 

He makes it into his flat a full forty minutes later to see that there’s a light blinking on his answering machine. 

It sets off a wave of panic in his veins, over-riding all the guilt and the anger. Almost no one has this number, it’s unlisted, it’s untraceable, and the odds of a telemarketer stumbling across it on accident is absurdly low.

No, there’s only two people that know this number — the person that helped with his discharge, and the person who was discharged with him. 

He closes his eyes, presses the button, and prays to hear the Brig’s voice. 

“Theta, are you still cowering in your flat? Did you make it out for groceries, or did you starve to death on your couch, stewing in your martyrdom?” Koschei isn’t mocking, he seems genuinely curious. The background noise swells over the recording, the clink of silverware on plates, the murmur of dinner conversation. “If you’re alive, phone me back. I’ve got a business opportunity for us. It’d be fun to get the old team back together.”

_The old team._

As if they aren’t the only two survivors from their squad.

The Doctor can guess what sort of business opportunity Koschei’s looking at – private contracts requiring their specialized set of skills, probably in the Middle East or Africa. The job could be something as menial as security, but a deal with a local government or warlord would be more Koschei’s speed. The Doctor’s sure he’s already burned through his government payout, Koschei’s only calling because he needs the money.

Although perhaps not. Right out of the Academy, Koschei was married to the rulebook, but the further along he got in his service, the more he enjoyed the work for its own sake.

Maybe he’s just bored.

The Doctor doesn’t pick up the phone to call him back, but he doesn’t erase the message either. Instead, he drinks a glass of water to ward off a hangover, strips on the way to his bedroom, clothes littering the floor in his wake, and collapses into bed.

~~~~~

Rose’s Monday shift at the shop shop starts at eleven in the morning.

She doesn’t wake up until noon.

Jackie’s gone, the flat is blissfully quiet, and Rose is tempted to call in sick. She was too livid to fall asleep the night before, finally nodded off when the sun came up, and now looks like the wreck she is – smeared makeup, wild hair, bags under the eyes.

But skipping work at the one place she’s trying to make a career and new life for herself, that’s an admission of defeat. If she doesn’t leave the flat this morning, it would be like a portent of things to come, growing old and grey in her mum’s flat, pushing Jackie around in a wheelchair.

Rose’s first big custom commission, and she blew it by letting herself get infatuated with her client. That doesn’t mean her career is over. You’re supposed to climb back up on a horse after you fall off, right?

Not that she’d ridden the Doctor.

And after that fiasco last night, there was zero chance he’d let her climb on his anything, ever again. 

More’s the pity.

“Pretentious sod,” Rose says, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and washing her face. She tosses the towel onto the basin and grabs some fresh mascara. “I’ll show him ‘professional.’”

She’s certain the Doctor won’t come back to the shop, not after she told him to fuck off. Twice. She has to find a way to return his commission. She never got his address, and she remembers which street he paused at last night before following her all the way to the Powell Estate, but that’s literally the only thing she has to go on, in terms of locating him.

Hanging out at the sushi restaurant in hopes of bumping into him – she won’t stoop to that level. It would just look desperate.

As she fishes through her cupboard for a fresh change of clothes, she starts working on her sales pitch. It’s time to lure in more custom work from walk-ins. She’s going to build her portfolio, even without the Doctor’s sleeve as its centerpiece. 

By 2 p.m. a new plan is basically handed to her on a silver platter — reparations from the universe, maybe. 

Give her a humiliating experience the night before, make up for it with clients. 

A group of study abroad students bang into the shop, sunlight following them through the door as they look for a way to commemorate their semester in England. 

She ends up netting five different tattoos — one for each of them — and they’re all so happy with her work that they take a stack of her business cards, vowing to pass them out on campus and at the dorms. 

It’s likely the closest she’ll ever get to uni herself, but she’ll take it. 

Mickey seems to notice she’s out of sorts though, even with the crumpled wad of pound notes shoved in her purse, and he insists on taking her out for a drink when they close up the shop for the day. 

There used to be a time when Mickey would know exactly  _why_  she needed a drink, and she’s almost tempted to tell him now, but it’s too weird — things are finally,  _finally_  over between them, but it seems wrong to flaunt just how  _over_  they are for her especially, that she’s already got trouble with another bloke.

Or, well,  _had_  trouble. Trouble that came and went and that she’s not going to think about.

Trouble that’s completely unnecessary, trouble she didn’t even know last month, and trouble she won’t think of again a month from now. 

As soon as she figures out how to get trouble his money back. 

Or wash her hands of the guilt of keeping trouble’s money. 

(There’s a Lady Macbeth joke there somewhere, something about spots that won’t come out and tattoos that won’t come off, and he’s  _not_  trouble, she  _liked_  him, and, ugh.)

(Fuck.)

She’s just going to accept Mickey’s offer to buy the first round, and she’ll get the next, and they’ll go from there — Mickey won’t ask and she won’t tell, and if Jack sticks his nose in, she’ll just shove it right back out again. 

It’s a plan that takes her down the street and into the pub, lager and shots and lager. They challenge a group of businessmen to a game of darts, and then they challenge each other to a game of snooker, it’s everything Mickey is supposed to be, and everything Mickey always was — comfortable, familiar, routine. 

But there’s still a part of her, a ghost Rose, a spirit Rose, re-tracing her steps from last night. Her eyes keep flitting to the table they’d sat at, the one sitting empty now, and he’d _rejected_  her, it’s silly, it’s absolutely  _mental_  to keep thinking about him, but she  _is_. 

When the jukebox flips to David Bowie, it’s not  _Starman_ , it’s  _The Man Who Sold the World_ , and that’s something, at least, even if that song makes her think of him, too, for reasons she’s can’t even fucking _name_ and what is _wrong_ with her?

It’s all mixing with the drinks and the lack of the sleep and the indignation and she doesn’t even hear her mobile ring until Mickey makes a grab for it. 

He checks the caller ID, shrugs, and then taps to connect, shoving the screen to his ear with a grin as puts on a posh, secretarial tone. 

“Rose Tyler’s phone, Mickey Smith speaking.”

He pauses, listening, and then glances at the bar. “Hold please, I’ll transfer you.” Nose wrinkling, he shoves the phone at Rose. “It’s for you.”

“Gee thanks, I’d never have twigged,” she says, rolling her eyes. She puts the phone to her ear. “Hullo?”

“Don’t pretend you can’t see me. You can’t ignore me all night.”

Jack Bloody Harkness. She whips around to locate him across the room, where Mickey had glanced a moment ago, behind the bar with a corded phone in hand. He’s wearing a oxford and braces, like it’s retro night at the pub or something. He smirks at her and waves.

“Can too,” she retorts.

“I have some information you’ll be interested to hear.”

“I’m not interested unless that information comes with a free lager.”

Jack puts his hand over the receiver and turns to shout to Ianto, who’s delivering drinks to a table near the door: “Is tonight charity night, for the hard-luck cases?”

“Are you the charity case? I suppose I could be in a giving mood, after closing time,” Ianto replies with a lifted eyebrow.

Jack’s smile widens. He turns back to Rose and says into the phone, “Well now I owe you one.”

Rose slips her mobile into her pocket and tells Mickey she’ll be right back. She settles at one of the few empty barstools. Jack pulls a pint of her usual lager and deposits it in front of her.

“So what’s this top secret information?” Rose asks. She takes a long gulp of beer.

“It’s funny you should use that phrase, ‘top secret.’ It has to do with your bloke from last night,” he says, leaning forward so he doesn’t have to shout over the din of other customers.

Jack’s eyes are so bright blue, just like the Doctor’s. Rose rubs her temples. “He’s not my bloke.”

Jack snorts, a disbelieving sound. Rose can’t meet his gaze. “Yeah well, I made some calls this morning. Code name ‘the Doctor,’ and that Theta Sigma tattoo you’d only half covered up with stars, I’d heard whispers about a man like that during my joint missions with the Brits. I put in a few calls to some old friends. Turns out this Doctor of yours was a high-ranking MI-6 intelligence officer, specializing in fieldwork engineering.”

Rose frowns at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“James Bond, with fewer assassinations and more bomb-diffusions. Part of an elite damage control team. At least, his squad was  _supposed_  to be damage control. During their last assignment, the lot of them ended up stranded in Africa in a local conflict. Things went south, some of the squad members went rogue. Downing Street disavowed all knowledge of their existence, abandoning them to their fate. Everything was covered up in the papers. As far as my government contact knew, there weren’t any survivors at all.”

Rose glances around to make sure no one else is listening. Mickey’s already chatting up another pretty girl at the snooker tables. “You’re saying he’s not really the Doctor? He’s an – an impostor or something?”

Jack leans closer, resting his hands on her forearms. “I’m saying that bloke has been through some rough shit. Frankly, it’s the kind of shit that most civilians don’t even want to imagine. And it led to his government throwing him away, probably with a tiny pension and a gold watch and a ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’” Jack pauses. “At least, I assume it was like that. The American government only shelled out enough to buy me a silver watch, the dollar isn’t holding up well against the pound.”

“Is this all leading up to you telling me to stay away from him?” Rose is gripping her pint so tightly it’s a wonder the glass hasn’t cracked. “Because you should know –”

“I’m not telling you anything, Rose. You’re a clever girl, you know how to look out for yourself. I just thought you might want to know.” He leans back, his serious expression instantly shifting into his usual jovial mask. “And if you share that information with anyone else, I’ll have to kill you.” He grins, winks, and sidles down the bar to help other customers.

Rose goes back to the sushi restaurant the next day, envelope full of cash in her pocket, and spends an inordinate amount of time eating dinner.

No Doctor.

She wanders down the street where he’d paused, that night he walked her home. She stares at building after building full of flats, all nondescript and indistinguishable. She uses that road every day on her walk to work, even though it means adding five blocks to her route.

No Doctor.

Two and a half weeks pass, and if it weren’t for the wad of cash he left behind, Rose would think the Doctor was just a fancy of her imagination, that she’d hallucinated the barmy events of that week. In the meantime, work settles into a new routine. She has customers calling and making appointments, so many that her days are nearly all booked up. She’s bringing in so much business that the tattoo shop owner gives her a bigger studio, toward the back of the shop, where it’s quieter and more private.

Around noon, just like every other day, she heads out to buy lunch. Digging through her pocketbook, she shoves open the door without looking, the chime jingling after her.

The door thumps into something on the sidewalk and bounces back into her, smacking the top of her head.

“Oh bollocks,” she says, dropping her wallet as she instinctively brings one hand up to her injured scalp, and shoves the door away with her other. 

“You weren’t even looking!” exclaims the person on the other side of the glass.

It’s the Doctor. He’s holding his forehead too, because the door bounced off of his face before it came back to hit hers. 

“You!” she blurts out, suddenly frozen. She’d forgotten how big his ears were. 

“Yeah, me.” His sharp blue eyes dance with amusement. “We had an appointment, Rose Tyler. My arm’s all healed up.” Stepping around the glass door, he leans down to fetch her pocketbook and takes her elbow to pull her out of the way, so the door can drift closed. He’s surveying her face, taking in her expression. “You really thought I’d stand you up?”

“I thought –”  _Thought you’d disappeared, thought you were a figment of my imagination, thought I was going mad_.  _I thought I’d blown it, and was going to spend the rest of my life thinking about a bloke I’d never see again._  Rose finally gives up, and she shrugs. She’s perfectly aware of how dumb her grin is, but she can’t control it. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“I’m a few minutes early,” the Doctor says, glancing at his wrist. His watch isn’t gold; it’s silver with a black leather band. Her phone number is still scrawled on his palm, he’s obviously traced over the number, meticulously following the lines to preserve her handwriting. “A week and a few minutes, technically. Told you I was a fast healer.”

“Hold on, were you pacing out here?  _Again_?” she asks.

“No,” he retorts too quickly, his indignation not entirely convincing.

“Doctor, you were!” Her cheeks are going to burst if she grins any wider. She’s fluttering, all of her, stomach and heart, scalp to toes. In a motion full of cat-like vexation, the Doctor deposits the pocketbook into her hands. His fingers graze across her palm, and she barely restrains herself from grabbing his hand, because she’s so delighted right now that she’d escalate that hand-holding right into a hug.

“So, do you want a tattoo or not? It’s what we do here. Says so on the sign.”

“I’d never have guessed,” he huffs, ruining the effect with a smile. 

Rose twirls around and opens the shop door. The Doctor follows her into the waiting area. Mickey’s behind the counter, waiting for a walk-in, his work schedule just as wide open as his eyes are right now.

“Hey Mickey, something just came up,” she says. “Can you handle my afternoon appointments for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” he stutters, leaning over the counter to watch Rose and the Doctor disappear down the hall and into Rose’s studio.


End file.
